Bangu, Rio de Janeiro

The word Bangu has two different meanings. It is a word of Tupi language origin, meaning black rampart or black wall, and it is also a word derivative from the African bangüê, which was the name given by the slaves to the mill where the sugar cane's bagasse was stored.

Street of Bangu

In 1673, Manuel de Barcelos Domingues created his farm, named Fazenda Bangu, a private chapel, called Paróquia de Nossa Senhora do Desterro de Campo Grande. In this location commenced the first economic activity of the district, with the foundation of the Engenho da Serra, which was a sugar cane mill.

In 1889, the Companhia Progresso Industrial do Brasil, founded on February 6 of that year, bought several farms; including Fazenda Bangu, and the construction of a factory started. Sugar cane farming was replaced by cotton farming. At this time, there was only one street in the region, named Estrada Real de Santa Cruz, used by the Jesuits.

In 1890, Bangu railway station was inaugurated, stimulating the neighborhood's growth and development. Bangu became a proletarian neighborhood, exporting fabric to Europe.

On March 8, 1893, the Fábrica de Tecidos Bangu (Bangu Fabrics Factory) was inaugurated, with the presence of the country's vice-president, Floriano Peixoto and the Federal District's mayor. The factory was a major textile player in Brazil and the world throughout the 20th Century, making the name "Tecidos Bangu" a well known household name.

After 1900, several streets were built, and the first school, called Marco Seis was inaugurated.

In 2004, part of Bangu was separated from its original area and became a new neighborhood named Gericinó.

On October 30, 2007, a major shopping mall named Bangu Shopping started its operation in the same building previously occupied by Fábrica de Tecidos Bangu, now located in the city of Petrópolis, also in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

The Bangu Penitentiary Complex is a maximum security prison, composed of 17 penal units. Nine of them are penitentiaries (only the Talavera Bruce is a women's prison), one is a penal institute, four are safehouses, one is a penal sanatorium and there are two hospitals.

Fernandinho Beira-Mar, a Brazilian drug lord, was held in the Bangu Penitentiary Complex from 2001 to 2003, before being transferred to a Presidente Prudente SUPERMAX prison.

Bangu Atlético Clube is a traditional football club based in the neighborhood and founded on 17 April 1904. One of the club's founders, Thomas Donohoe, can be called the “Father of Brazilian Football”. He organised, in the grounds of the Bangu Fabrics Factory, the first football match in Brazil in 1894. The club plays its home matches at Estádio Moça Bonita, inaugurated in 1947.

Ceres Futebol Clube, founded in 1933, is another neighborhood's city club. Ceres plays its home matches at Estádio João Francisco dos Santos.

Croatian international footballer and current Shakhtar Donetsk star Eduardo da Silva is originally from Bangu and lived there before moving to Croatia as a 16-year-old.

In the carnival, its representative and the Unidos de Bangu, who already paraded among the major samba schools, in the decade of 1960.

1. ^ (in Portuguese) Secretaria Municipal do Governo
2. ^ (in Portuguese) Câmara dos Deputados
3. ^ (in Portuguese) Beira-Mar é transferido para presídio em SP - Terra (February 27, 2003)
4. ^ (in Croatian) Bio bih u divljim ligama Brazila da nisam došao u Dinamo - Jutarnji.hr Archived 2008-10-29 at the Wayback Machine (January 13, 2008)

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• Much of the content of this article comes from the equivalent Portuguese-language Wikipedia article (retrieved April 19, 2006).